I love Brown’s Island. In 25 years of living in the city, I have spent a lot of memorable moments here. It's where I bring my kids regularly. My son is a kayak instructor for Passages and spent many summers here on the river by Brown’s Island. It's where I bring friends and out of town family when they're visiting Richmond. Every week, people ask me what I love about Richmond, and I say that the T. Potterfield Bridge is my favorite thing in this city. This place holds a lot of importance and value, and to see what is about to happen here is incredibly encouraging.  

One of the things that I did coming into this job was build our strategy around 7 pillars. One of those pillars is being a city that tells our stories. I often take the opportunity, when we're doing something new or when we're cutting a ribbon, to look back and to talk about the history of a place. Brown's Island is named after its first settler, Elijah Brown, who acquired the land back in 1826. During the Civil War, this island was home to something called the Confederate States Laboratory. This is where women and children worked to produce the ammunition and other military supplies for the Confederate cause. It's a reminder of the fact that this island, like so many other aspects of our city, has a history that's really complicated and sometimes painful to parts of our community. Every chapter of Richmond’s story, even the hard ones, informs who we are now, and who we are becoming together.
We are a city that tells its stories, and we learn from them, and in doing so, we move towards healing. We double down on our commitment to being an inclusive city and to creating meaningful opportunity for every Richmonder, especially those who have been historically marginalized.  

As the years progressed, Brown’s Island continued to evolve.
In 1894, the Richmond Union Passenger Railway built a coal power plant on the island. In 1899, Dominion Virginia Power operated a hydroelectric plant that ran off the Haxall Canal, which led to the construction of the Brown’s Island Dam. Then, in the late 20th century, the Albemarle Paper Company, now Newmarket Corporation, operated a paper mill here.
There's been a lot happening in this space. In 1987, in an act of civic generosity that changed the course of Richmond’s riverfront, Newmarket gifted the land to the city of Richmond. That has led to the Brown’s Island that we know today, a park that is preserved and that has given us the opportunity to share this incredible space and these beautiful views with everyone. 
 

Today we continue in that spirit of civic generosity and public private partnership, where the city and our private community come together. Thank you to all who helped to make today happen.